5 things: Elior expands into Medicare Advantage meal service market

In this edition of 5 Things, Food Management highlights five things you may have missed recently about developments affecting onsite dining.

Here’s your list for today:

Elior North America has launched LiveWell with Traditions, which expands the company's senior nutrition meals program to provide customized, home-delivered meals for health plan, Medicare Advantage Organization (MAO) and Managed Care Organization (MCO) members. Elior's existing TRIO Community Meals unit already provides over 70 million meals to seniors across the U.S. annually, and LiveWell with Traditions expands that into the Medicare Advantage market with meals designed by its registered dietitians to meet the specific dietary requirements of individuals, who will receive to-the-door delivery of the meals.

"LiveWell with Traditions was designed with the specific needs of chronically ill and post-acute care individuals in mind," said Olivier Poirot, president and CEO of Elior North America. "Our team's proven track record of success serving individuals with unique dietary needs will ensure that individuals receive the precise nutrition and caring service they deserve at a good value to providers."

Read more: Elior Expands into the Medicaid and Medicare Advantage markets with LiveWell with Traditions

Related:5 tech things: Checkout-less markets replace c-stores at University of Denver

MultiCare Health System in Washington has agreed to pay $42 million to thousands of healthcare workers to settle a lawsuit brought by two former employees regarding lost wages over meals and rest breaks. The suit alleged that the health system’s time clock rounding policy did not comply with state law, resulting in hourly employees being underpaid, and that MultiCare did not provide second meal periods when employees worked shifts longer than 10.5 hours and failed to ensure employees “take all legally required rest breaks and first meal periods at Auburn Medical Center,” according to the settlement document. Their complaint also contended the health system did not compensate Auburn employees when breaks or meal periods were “missed, interrupted, or shortened.”

Read more: MultiCare set to pay $42M in wage-and-hours settlement; terms to be finalized in August

Michigan State University will not be providing quarantine and isolation housing for students who test positive for COVID-19 in the 2022-23 academic year, according to an email from MSU’s housing department sent to on-campus students. Students who test positive are expected to self-isolate, not attend in-person classes or activities, use take-out options from campus dining halls or other low-contact ways of getting food, and contact medical personnel if symptoms worsen or do not improve, the university said.

Related:5 things: Hawaii schools revert to on-campus-only summer meals

Read more: Michigan State University to stop isolation and quarantine housing in the fall

Nonprofit Windward Zero Waste School Hui, which composts all the food waste at five Kailua schools in Hawaii, says it is now processing a record amount of food. “In 2019, we did 54.4 tons in our five schools,” said Mindy Jaffe, the coordinator for the program. “This year, the numbers show that we’ll be doing over 60 tons in one year.” The company suggests the USDA’s nationwide waiver allowing all public school students to receive free meals this school year caused a massive amount of food waste because schools don’t have much of a choice but to provide that much food, but an analysis of what is tossed can help guide menus toward more popular choices and reduce waste.

Read more: Food waste at Hawaii schools is way up. Could one nonprofit’s unique insight offer a fix?

Elon Musk has apparently ordered Tesla and SpaceX employees to work in the office at least 40 hours per week or quit their jobs, contradicting prevailing attitudes among employers that are leaning toward more flexibility in balancing remote and in-office work. The orders are especially significant because Musk has a pending deal to buy Twitter, which currently encourages employees to work remotely.

Read more: Musk to Tesla and SpaceX workers: Be in the office 40 hours a week or quit

Bonus: 15 senior dining Foodservice Heroes who made a difference over the past year

Contact Mike Buzalka at [email protected]